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A vast national audience rooted for Precious, the heroine of the film of that name and of Sapphire's novel "Push," as she learned to read with a dedicated teacher's help. Profoundly abused, obese, barely literate and HIV-infected, Precious set about becoming a good mother and an educated woman. But the odds were stacked against Precious, and reality is unflinching. Sapphire spares no one. Her conscience is guided by life as it is, not as she might wish it would be. The first pages of "The Kid," Sapphire's new book, open with an inevitable tragedy: Precious dies. At her funeral, she is celebrated for earning her GED and heading to college. She broke the...

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A vast national audience rooted for Precious, the heroine of the film of that name and of Sapphire's novel "Push," as she learned to read with a dedicated teacher's help. Profoundly abused, obese, barely literate and HIV-infected, Precious set...